This invention relates generally to instrumentation for sensing local areas or zones of patient body heat, and more particularly concerns such instrumentation effective to sense differential heating of local body areas, as for example skin areas proximate the spinal column.
There is a need for an easily usable, accurate, pocket-sized device that will operate to detect differential heating of patient skin zones. In this regard, it is found that the temperatures of such zones proximate sub-surfaces tissue or muscles in spasm, or sites of bruising or injury are slightly higher than the temperatures of uninjured tissue zones. In particular, there is need for such a device which may be readily applied along the spinal column of a patient to isolate zones along the vertebra which may be in spasm, so that such areas may be investigated.